SFRC Testimony -- Zbigniew Brzezinski
February 1, 2007
Mr. Chairman:
Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq,
and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them.
It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:
1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity.
Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s
global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some
abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by
Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional
instability.
2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than
reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for
a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying
regional tensions.
If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody
involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to
be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.
A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure
to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility
for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S.
blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against
Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire
eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and
potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by
false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the
“decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier
collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism
and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi
Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl
Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.
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This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was
based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European
state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the
victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide
appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not
embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist
Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American
occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran—though gaining in
regional influence—is itself politically divided, economically and militarily
weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider
Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
Deplorably, the Administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East region
has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and
inflammatory talk about “a new strategic context” which is based on
“clarity” and which prompts “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” is
breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a
long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those
in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic selfostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles’s attitude
of the early 1950’s toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among
other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took
some two decades and a half before another Republican president was
finally able to undo that legacy.
One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the
Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates.
The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular
antagonism toward the U.S. global posture.
* * *
It is obvious by now that the American national interest calls for a
significant change of direction. There is in fact a dominant consensus in
favor of a change: American public opinion now holds that the war was a
mistake; that it should not be escalated, that a regional political process
should be explored; and that an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is an
essential element of the needed policy alteration and should be actively
pursued. It is noteworthy that profound reservations regarding the
Administration’s policy have been voiced by a number of leading
Republicans. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the much
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admired President Gerald Ford, former Secretary of State James Baker,
former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading
Republican senators, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith among
others.
The urgent need today is for a strategy that seeks to create a political
framework for a resolution of the problems posed both by the US occupation
of Iraq and by the ensuing civil and sectarian conflict. Ending the
occupation and shaping a regional security dialogue should be the mutually
reinforcing goals of such a strategy, but both goals will take time and require
a genuinely serious U.S. commitment.
The quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq should
involve four steps:
1. The United States should reaffirm explicitly and unambiguously its
determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time.
Ambiguity regarding the duration of the occupation in fact encourages
unwillingness to compromise and intensifies the on-going civil strife.
Moreover, such a public declaration is needed to allay fears in the
Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony.
Right or wrong, many view the establishment of such a hegemony as
the primary reason for the American intervention in a region only
recently free of colonial domination. That perception should be
discredited from the highest U.S. level. Perhaps the U.S. Congress
could do so by a joint resolution.
2. The United States should announce that it is undertaking talks with
the Iraqi leaders to jointly set with them a date by which U.S. military
disengagement should be completed, and the resulting setting of such
a date should be announced as a joint decision. In the meantime, the
U.S. should avoid military escalation.
It is necessary to engage all Iraqi leaders—including those who do not
reside within “the Green Zone”—in a serious discussion regarding the
proposed and jointly defined date for U.S. military disengagement
because the very dialogue itself will help identify the authentic Iraqi
leaders with the self-confidence and capacity to stand on their own
legs without U.S. military protection. Only Iraqi leaders who can
exercise real power beyond “the Green Zone” can eventually reach a
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genuine Iraqi accommodation. The painful reality is that much of the
current Iraqi regime, characterized by the Bush administration as
“representative of the Iraqi people,” defines itself largely by its
physical location: the 4 sq. miles-large U.S. fortress within Baghdad,
protected by a wall in places 15 feet thick, manned by heavily armed
U.S. military, popularly known as “the Green Zone.”
3. The United States should issue jointly with appropriate Iraqi leaders,
or perhaps let the Iraqi leaders issue, an invitation to all neighbors of
Iraq (and perhaps some other Muslim countries such as Egypt,
Morocco, Algeria, and Pakistan) to engage in a dialogue regarding
how best to enhance stability in Iraq in conjunction with U.S. military
disengagement and to participate eventually in a conference regarding
regional stability.
The United States and the Iraqi leadership need to engage Iraq’s
neighbors in serious discussion regarding the region’s security
problems, but such discussions cannot be undertaken while the U.S. is
perceived as an occupier for an indefinite duration. Iran and Syria
have no reason to help the United States consolidate a permanent
regional hegemony. It is ironic, however, that both Iran and Syria
have lately called for a regional dialogue, exploiting thereby the selfdefeating character of the largely passive – and mainly sloganeering –
U.S. diplomacy.
A serious regional dialogue, promoted directly or indirectly by the
U.S., could be buttressed at some point by a wider circle of
consultations involving other powers with a stake in the region’s
stability, such as the EU, China, Japan, India, and Russia. Members
of this Committee might consider exploring informally with the states
mentioned their potential interest in such a wider dialogue.
4. Concurrently, the United States should activate a credible and
energetic effort to finally reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, making it
clear in the process as to what the basic parameters of such a final
accommodation ought to involve.
The United States needs to convince the region that the U.S. is
committed both to Israel’s enduring security and to fairness for the
Palestinians who have waited for more than forty years now for their
own separate state. Only an external and activist intervention can
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promote the long-delayed settlement for the record shows that the
Israelis and the Palestinians will never do so on their own. Without
such a settlement, both nationalist and fundamentalist passions in the
region will in the longer run doom any Arab regime which is
perceived as supportive of U.S. regional hegemony.
After World War II, the United States prevailed in the defense of democracy
in Europe because it successfully pursued a long-term political strategy of
uniting its friends and dividing its enemies, of soberly deterring aggression
without initiating hostilities, all the while also exploring the possibility of
negotiated arrangements. Today, America’s global leadership is being tested
in the Middle East. A similarly wise strategy of genuinely constructive
political engagement is now urgently needed.
It is also time for the Congress to assert itself.
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